[sc34wg3] The Norwegian National Body position on ISO 13250

[Steve Pepper]

At 23:13 12.04.2003 -0400, Michel Biezunski wrote:
>* pepper:
> >The trouble is that the lack of
> >guidance in ISO 13250 is leading to systems that are severely
> >non-conformant.
>
>* biezunski:
>Can you please be more specific here? What do you mean
>by severely non-conformant? How many such examples do you
>have?

I can be more specific, but not 'here' on the mailing list:
I have many such examples, but I can't make them public
without either betraying confidences, upsetting friends, or
alienating potential customers :-)

I am willing to share the details with you and the committee
in confidence and in private. They will include things like
the following:

- numerous examples of companies claiming to support ISO 13250
   that really do nothing of the sort;

- examples of companies and individuals that sincerely want
   to support ISO 13250 but are screwing up big time because
   the standard is so inadequate.

In the case of the latter I can show you totally screwed up
topic maps exported from tools that are really trying to be
conformant and tell you stories of "topic map engines" being
developed in ways that would make your hair curl ;-)

>We need to study this in very much detail knowing
>that there are 2 possible fixes to such a problem:
>
>1) Make the standard hospitable to software currently
>    considered non-conformant. The standard needs to
>    be apparently more flexible and open.
>
>2) Make the standard close so that it would exclude
>    all software which is not strictly conformant to
>    whatever the conformance clause will eventually
>    be.

I don't think we need to "make" the standard anything at
all. All we need is to document it better and describe real,
testable conformance requirements.

The SAM, XTM and CXTM together give us everything we need in
these respects.

Steve

--
Steve Pepper, Ontopian
http://www.ontopia.net
DUMUS DELENDA EST